"Careless Detention"--Those Who Can't Say No to Drugs

[hummingwolf]

Detainees drugged without medical reason--U.S. government violating its own rules in the process.

The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

The government's forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the "pre-flight cocktail," as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

About one detainee:

"I can't be deported," he replied. "I have a wife I love very much." Besides, he told them, he was still appealing his immigration case. He shouldn't have to leave, he protested, until the judge had ruled. That day, he was returned to Alabama. But he said that immigration officers warned him, "We'll find a way to get you on a plane."

A few weeks later, the officers came back and again took him to a holding cell in Atlanta. He was, the medical log says, becoming "increasingly anxious and non-cooperative per flt. to Nigeria." At 1:30 p.m., the log says, "Dt taken down by four" guards.

Ade was being held down, he recalled, when he noticed a nurse "with a needle and a bottle with some kind of substance in it." He said he told the guards: "Okay, fine, fine. If it's going to be like this, don't inject me. I will go on my own free will."

Check out page 2 of the article to see which drugs were commonly used in this nifty cocktail and in what doses they were given. Hey, have I ever mentioned in this journal that one of my recurring childhood nightmares was the one where government officials came to my house, accused me of something-or-other, and injected me with drugs against my will? (Link via supergee.)

Comments

[helen99.livejournal.com]

It hurts that the 'official' side of the country behaves so differently from its ideals and the people who live here.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah. If any other country were doing this to American citizens for whatever reason, you know our government would be screaming about how evil it is. And they'd be right.